The big fuss Yu Mian created naturally sparked heated discussions in the author circle.
After all, having readers stockpile chapters was every author’s worst nightmare. The horror of it was practically on par with a horror novel itself.
No one had expected Teacher Fish Soup Noodles to use such a bizarre method to somehow “coax” all the hoarders out in one fell swoop.
“But this isn’t something anyone else can replicate.”
“It’s like… even if I did a live broadcast reading stories, would anyone actually listen?”
Omirs stroked his slightly stubbled chin and decisively rejected his fans’ suggestion to try live broadcasting reading stories.
A person needed to have a clear understanding of their own positioning.
Still, Omirs speculated that if this live broadcast turned out to be extremely successful, there would inevitably be a wave of authors and platforms jumping on the trend.
“I just don’t know how the pricing will work for this.”
After all, this was different from some anchors merely recommending books during their live broadcasts. The content was no longer fragmented preview sections but rather complete, full-length storylines.
Currently, “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain” had already entered its VIP phase. If Teacher Fish Soup Noodles wanted to try this kind of audiobook storytelling, the content he read aloud would essentially be the paid content on the Huanyu website.
Even if Fish Soup Noodles himself didn’t mind the loss of some royalties, would Huanyu agree to this?
Omirs scratched his head, a little worried that the live broadcast might get canceled. After all, he really wanted to hear Fish Soup Noodles read the story!
Many Fish fans were terrified of the thriller elements in “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain”, but they just so happened to hit Omirs’ preferences perfectly. He loved that heart-clenching, scalp-tingling sensation!
Among all of Fish Soup Noodles’ works, “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain” had almost climbed to a tie with “Rebirth Of The Interstellar Soldier King” among his favorites.
In fact, after Yu Mian proposed this idea, several editors and the copyright department at Huanyu did raise concerns and objections.
Wouldn’t this essentially be transferring Huanyu’s paid content to another platform for free?
“But I actually think this could open up a new model. After all, many people can’t keep their eyes glued to a screen while working, but their ears can still listen to stories.”
Several editors who had been listening in exchanged glances before finally raising their hands to speak.
“Moreover, the fact that Teacher Fish Soup Noodles is willing to personally read the stories aloud is an extremely rare opportunity. As long as we can resolve the issue of payment, this is totally feasible. Besides, this is something that can be coordinated with the live broadcasting platform.” Shaxs added his thoughts as well.
Previously, this kind of situation had never occurred because no one wanted to listen to serious stories while working.
But it was different when it came to works like “Contract Marriage”, “Eternal Night Rose”, or “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain”, which were fun and engaging.
“I support Shaxs’ idea too! As a Fish fan, I’d love to hear Teacher Fish Soup Noodles read stories! And this way, I can even listen to novels while showering at night… ahem.”
One editor spoke enthusiastically but then blushed in embarrassment.
“My eyes get tired sometimes, and I don’t always want to stare at a screen. Listening to the book would be a great solution.”
“Paid live broadcasts are an option too. The revenue distribution just needs to be negotiated with the platform. Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’ readings would bring in a huge audience anyway.”
After listening to Shaxs and the others, the deputy chief editor pondered for a moment and found the idea reasonable.
“How about we reach out to Eternal live broadcast for a partnership? If Teacher Fish Soup Noodles wants to try something new, Huanyu will fully support him. If necessary, we can even forgo a portion of our manuscript share.”
In fact, ever since Huanyu revised its contract with Yu Mian, he had already been receiving the most lucrative deal in the entire industry.
From the deputy chief editor’s perspective, anything that ensured Fish Soup Noodles stayed with Huanyu was absolutely worth it. Only an idiot would be stingy about the revenue split here.
However, what Huanyu didn’t expect was that this time, the issue actually came from the live broadcasting platform itself!
[Eternal live broadcast: We warmly welcome Teacher Fish Soup Noodles to join Eternal live broadcast. However, like Huanyu, we have always supported paid live broadcasts, with a standard 50/50 revenue split between anchors and the platform. We recommend that Teacher Fish Soup Noodles try enabling the paid live broadcast function.]
Eternal live broadcast, a well-established interstellar streaming platform, was on par with Huanyu in terms of traffic and revenue, with no clear superior between them. Their response was polite but it was clear in their words that they weren’t willing to make an exception.
“How could they? Back when Teacher Fish Soup Noodles chose their platform for his cooking live broadcasts, he brought them a massive wave of traffic and gift revenue. Shouldn’t they at least consider negotiating?”
While everyone hesitated, another staff member from the operations department frowned and analyzed the situation.
“I actually think the issue lies with the monetization aspect.”
“Teacher Fish Soup Noodles has always live broadcast for free on Eternal live broadcast. Sometimes, when fans gifted him overly generous rewards, he would even disable the gift feature himself. Despite his massive traffic, he never actively monetized it.”
Huanyu’s staff fell into a collective silence.
“Maybe I should reach out to Teacher Fish Soup Noodles? After all, he was the one who originally chose Eternal live broadcast. There might be a reason behind it.”
Shaxs raised his hand.
[Fish: Uh, is that so? But I just picked Eternal live broadcast randomly back then.]
Before starting his cooking live broadcasts, Yu Mian had noticed that, unlike Huanyu, which was the undisputed number one in the novel industry, the interstellar live broadcasting platforms were split between two major contenders.
One was the well-established leader, Eternal live broadcast, and the other was the rising star, Starstream Live.
In the end, he had chosen Eternal live broadcast simply because, at the time, it had slightly higher traffic…just as he had chosen Huanyu for novels.
If he was going to pick one, he might as well go for the best.
“But this situation now is kind of annoying.”
Yu Mian propped his chin on his hand and tapped his light brain.
His cooking live broadcasts had always been a benefit for his fans. Since they had already paid for the novel and sent gifts, Yu Mian felt that asking them to pay again for live broadcast gifts was a bit too much.
He hadn’t considered whether this would make the platform feel like he wasn’t properly monetizing his traffic.
[Crispy Shark: Wait a minute, Teacher Fish Soup Noodles, things might have just taken a turn!]
Just as Yu Mian was considering canceling the live broadcast for now, Shaxs suddenly sent over some new information.
Even Huanyu hadn’t expected that another live broadcasting platform, Starstream Live, would actually reach out to them after hearing about Fish Soup Noodles’ trial live broadcast at noon.
“When Teacher Fish Soup Noodles started his cooking live broadcasts, we always regretted that he didn’t choose our platform. We thought maybe there was something about our service that he wasn’t satisfied with!”
“Until we heard that Teacher Fish Soup Noodles was planning to live broadcast reading stories, we really didn’t want to miss it. So we quickly drafted a proposal, hoping we could secure a partnership with Teacher Fish Soup Noodles on our platform.”
The proposal handed over by the Starry Live representative made the deputy chief editor and others widen their eyes.
Not only did they promise to create a customized live broadcast mode specifically for Fish Soup Noodles, but the platform also agreed not to take any share of the revenue from this live broadcast.
All paid subscriptions and gift earnings would be divided according to the royalty contract between Huanyu and Fish Soup Noodles.
In other words, Starry Live was providing a free live broadcast platform along with full technical support!
“Our only hope is to collaborate with Huanyu to promote this model so that more and more novels can be adapted into audiobooks, with Starry Live as the exclusive promoter and operator.”
“Of course, this is a separate strategic partnership. The main reason is that our general manager is a big fan of Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’s works. He always has to go to our competitor’s platform to watch the live broadcasts, which is really frustrating. This time, he said that under no circumstances should Eternal Live get Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’s live broadcast again.”
After hearing the background from the Starry Live representative, the deputy chief editor and others were quickly struck by the potential of this proposal.
Was this about to create a whole new category of copyrights?
[Fish: A radio drama? That’s totally doable. The cost is relatively low, the production cycle is short, and the effect is great.]
After reading the contract, Yu Mian immediately realized that this was essentially the prototype of a radio drama.
Previously, he had been focused on film and TV rights, such as movies, dramas, and the documentary rights for “God of Cooking”, which was currently in negotiations. He had completely overlooked radio dramas.
Of course, a professionally produced radio drama would undoubtedly be much more refined than an author simply reading aloud.
But unexpectedly, this attempt with “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain” had, by chance, led Starry Live to propose such a collaboration.
Honestly, these actions really gave a greater impression of them.
A live broadcast is a live broadcast, no matter where it happens. If necessary, just “move house”.
So when Yu Mian posted the new live broadcast link on StarBlog, all the long-awaited fans immediately noticed the difference in platforms this time!
[Wow, switched to ! Wait, Starry Live even promoted it with a full-screen banner? Is this live broadcasting on a whole new level now?]
[Oh wow, Huanyu and Starry Live are teaming up? Huanyu users can listen to the live broadcast for free if they subscribe to chapters on the Huanyu app, and Starry Live users can convert their live broadcast subscriptions into equivalent Huanyu chapter access? That’s so convenient!]
Fans were thrilled, realizing that this collaboration had been very well thought out, with all subscription policies carefully planned.
[Starry Live V: Yes! We’ve partnered with Teacher Fish Soup Noodles!
And Teacher Fish Soup Noodles is personally covering the cost for the first week, making it free for a limited time! Starry Live will also be giving away gift packs of equal value in daily live broadcast giveaways for seven consecutive days! Everyone is welcome to listen to the stories!!!!
In the future, Starry Live and Huanyu will continue to collaborate on more projects, inviting professional voice actors to produce audiobooks for your favorite works~ OwO]
The official Starry Live account was behaving nothing like a typical corporate account. Not only did they relentlessly repost Yu Mian’s promotional StarBlog post, but they were also wildly engaging in the comment section.
If they could, they’d probably pick up a random dog on star network just to tell it: “We’re working with Teacher Fish Soup Noodles!”
[I am dying of laughter, did Starry Live snatch Teacher Fish Soup Noodles from Eternal Live and want to brag to the whole universe? Their official account even changed its profile picture to a live broadcast promo “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain”. I’m dying.]
[This is kinda novel and fun, hahaha. The atmosphere at Eternal Live was never this lively. I thought it was just the difference in platform temperaments, but now Starry Live feels cheeky and kinda cute. I guess I’ll go download the Starry Live app.]
[Eternal is going to panic soon. Are we about to see a platform battle?? @eternallivebroadcast, are you really just letting Fish Soup Noodles be snatched away? Come on, fight back!]
The heated discussions on star network gave “I Picked Up A Traveling Light Brain” another huge wave of exposure.
Meanwhile, over at Eternal live broadcast, the management was now feeling restless.
Fish Soup Noodles was not “snatched”…because, well, they had kind of let him go in the first place…?
“What? Not only did they waive all fees, but they’re actually partnering with Huanyu to make audiobooks and radio dramas? What is that even?”
As the veteran broadcasting giant, Eternal Live had always been conservative and stable compared to the rising star Starry Live. Seeing all these unfamiliar terms, they were momentarily dumbfounded.
“They must have made some special offer to poach him. Otherwise, every major content creator has always subconsciously chosen our platform for live broadcasting. Wasn’t Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’ first choice also Eternal Live? Starry Live’s tactics are really… something else.”
The executives at Eternal Live hastily called a meeting, but after discussing for half a day, they couldn’t come up with a real countermeasure.
To them, this was clearly a case of malicious poaching.
“Ugh, but to be fair, Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’s live broadcasts always had high viewership but low revenue conversion. He even frequently disabled the gift function, telling fans not to send gifts.”
“And now Starry Live isn’t taking any revenue share at all? That’s completely disrupting the market!”
Were they really just burning money to gain popularity?
“If we had known Starry Live was planning to poach him…”
We definitely wouldn’t have let him go so easily.
After all, the ones you lose always seem the most valuable.
“Forget it. Next time, we’ll just invite more celebrities to live broadcast concerts and draw traffic that way. How about Ernis? That’s got to be more interesting than listening to an author read stories, right?”
As for this whole audiobook and radio drama thing, it was probably just a gimmick.
With the situation settled, the Eternal Live team spent some time reassuring themselves and eventually wrapped up the meeting.
Meanwhile, the netizens who had been eagerly waiting for a fierce platform battle were surprised to find that Eternal Live, which had always been at odds with Starry Live, was uncharacteristically silent this time.
